Catholic Christmas Candy

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

There’s a palpable sweetness in the air at Our Lady of the Mississippi monastery near Dubuque, Iowa. The source might be the abbey’s famous tasty caramel products, but I think the true origin is the twenty or so kind and gentle Trappist women who live and work there. 

We met some of them on a recent trip to see our friend, 82-year-old monk Father Brendan Freeman of nearby New Melleray Abbey. Father Brendan lived in Northern Utah for a short time, and helped me with Monastery Mornings, my 2021 memoir about growing up at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville.

During our Iowa visit, Father Brendan showed us his lovely and historic 173-year-old abbey. He also drove us around Dubuque, stopped at sites with spectacular views of the Mississippi River, and then introduced us to the sisters at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Mississippi.

Trappist sisters, called Trappistines, first arrived on the rural Iowa prairie in October 1964. Their motherhouse—Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts —was bursting at the seams. The New England monastery sent thirteen young sisters west to start a new abbey.

One of them was Sister Gail Fitzpatrick, who we met during our own Iowa monastic pilgrimage. Sister Gail and her traveling colleagues settled on the Stampfer Family’s old Hickory Hill estate, perched on a knoll overlooking the river. For many years, the Stampfers had operated a store known as the “Macy’s of Dubuque.” 

The Trappistines renovated the large Stampfer house into a temporary monastic home. They adapted existing smaller cottages and outbuildings to meet the abbey’s other needs. Today, the monastery’s 630 acres includes managed woodlands and an organic farm.

Following their Trappist motto of ora et labora—Latin for prayer and work—the founding Iowa sisters also started the hard work of building a new chapel and establishing a business to support the abbey. The church took shape without incident. Not so for the business. 

The sisters first tried to make and sell cookies, but they encountered many operational difficulties. Sister Gail once explained to a news reporter that the cookies burned and broke. Their initial business plan crumbled—literally and figuratively.

As a result, the sisters turned to candy-making, a craft their motherhouse had perfected a decade earlier. Abbey lore says a Greek candy maker gifted some of his secret recipes to the Massachusetts nuns. They happily shared this confidential know-how with their Iowa counterparts in 1965.

Almost six decades later, the delicious work of making candy goes on at both monastic houses. Last year, the good sisters from Iowa made and sold over 32 tons of Trappistine Creamy Caramels. Their initial product, a “Classic Vanilla,” remains the all-time bestseller and customer favorite. 

However, the Trappistines also produce a popular “Creamy Chocolate” (vanilla caramel with chocolate liquor). And they make and sell dark/milk chocolate covered caramels, hazelnut meltaways, Irish mints, Swiss mints, truffles, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, and maple syrup. 

The sisters say that their products are made with pure butter, cream, and loving care. That love comes from employees and volunteers, but also from Trappistines ranging in age from 25 to 84 who pray while they work. A century-old candy processing machine helps too.

The nuns perform their sweet labors in a state-of-the art facility dedicated twenty years ago. The 12,000 square foot candy house is heated and cooled geothermally, ensuring both environmental sustainability and conditions vital to good candy production. The Today show featured the entire operation in 2017.

On the early autumn afternoon when we visited Iowa, we chatted with Sister Gail, the monastery leader (abbess) from 1982 to 2006. We also met Sister Rebecca Stramoski, the current/fourth abbess, elected in 2012. And we met Sister Annie Rose Marie and Sister Mary Therese, lively brand new novices who joined the monastery in 2022.

In the true spirit of Trappist hospitality, the lovely nuns made hot tea for us and served delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies. The conversation was even better.

Sister Gail told us about her background and the evolution of the monastery. We discussed how Sister Mary and Sister Annie found their way to the abbey recently. Discerning readers that they are, the sisters had read my Monastery Mornings book and had lots of questions about the Utah monks I knew as a boy.

The Trappistines also told us about the busy “Candy Season” into which they were entering. Although Saint Valentine’s Day helps too, in the three or four months before Christmas, Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey produces, sells, and ships the vast majority of their caramel output.

We always look for unique and meaningful holiday gifts. In past years we gave friends monk bread from Genesee Abbey in upstate New York, or bourbon fudge and fruitcake from Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. Each such delectable present was happily received, savored, and then devoured.

This year, we bought a case of Trappistine Creamy Caramels and will give many of our friends Catholic Christmas Candy from the banks of the Mississippi River. I cannot wait to tell them all about the sweet women who make it.

*Mike O’Brien (author website here: https://michaelpobrien.com/) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings (https://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Mornings-Unusual-Boyhood-Saints/dp/1640606491), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.